


Bang Bang (For Now)

by et2zarry



Series: Anything Can Happen [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M, Set in the 1920s, how nice, shit like this doesn't happen, so war and sexism and racism, this is awful, very loosely based on the Great Gatsby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:32:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/et2zarry/pseuds/et2zarry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry’s a rich boy banking off his father’s money. Zayn’s a journalist. It’s the 1920s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bang Bang (For Now)

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little skeptical about writing this at first because why would I want to go back into the 20s where I would have had little rights? But, with a little persuasion, I thought I could explore the different themes of the america during the 1920s while also writing my own (better) would-have-been destiny. This story isn't about me though.
> 
> This is also as real as that knock-off Chanel purse sitting in my closet (spoiler alert--it ain’t real).

Zayn was born in the wrong city he thinks. Wichita, Kansas— he was born in Wichita, Kansas where nothing happened, nothing is happening, and nothing will happen. Unhappy with the lackluster that Wichita offers and inspired by those like Joan Crawford and Louis Armstrong and Virginia Hervieux, he had made a promise to himself that on his eighteenth birthday he would pack his suitcase (he only needed one) and leave for New York. He didn’t have a plan, not a logical one at least, and figured a boy with his luck could only wish for things to be okay. 

As long as could get to New York, as long as he could seek out one speakeasy, he would have been fine. Fate had been nice to Zayn that day, gifting him with a home, a job, the password to a speakeasy, and an affair that had been the topic of much gossip of which he neither confirmed nor denied. 

Zayn was born in the wrong time he also thinks, wishes he could fast forward to after the war, celebrate winning, mourn losing, and grieve for the lost. He’s tired of every conversation leading back to the topic of war, romanticized and glorified ( _glorified death_ Zayn bitterly thinks), young men telling tales of signing up and fighting, all for a _“kiss on the cheek. I told Lisa I was going to fight for my country and she gave me the sweetest kiss on the cheek.”_

He’s tired of the streets of Manhattan being covered in a toxic, melancholy film, the people in them dark and sluggish.

And most importantly, he’s tired of writing article after article about the glorified death, the glorified killing. It’s always convince, _Fight for Your Country; We aren’t the Bad Guys,_ empathize, _The Tragedy of Young Men Lost,_ and cheer, _There’s Nothing You can’t do When Wearing Red, White, and Blue!!_ Convince and empathize and cheer and convince and empathize and cheer.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, if he’s lucky enough, he can write himself out of this hell hole and into some place far and distant and safe. He sometimes likes to thinks about the first time he met Virginia, the day when he had been exquisitely happy, feeling foreign in his body yet somehow right—

_Zayn has heard things about LaRue. About how it was nothing like the speakeasies and clubs everyone else knows and speaks in hushed whispers about. He’s heard about the blinding circles of lights decorating the walls, incandescent and iridescently so. And if he’s heard about the lights, then he’s heard about the music, intoxicatingly loud and live, blaring and bone-rattling. And if he’s heard about the music, well then he’s heard about the people— fancifully dressed and fulfillingly rich; sounds of harmonious laughter and hollow clouds of smoke following them around._  


_But—_  


_But none of the artful descriptions makes Zayn not want to go, doesn’t make him want to not see for himself. Because, Zayn figures, if you have two skillful and working eyes, it’d be a crime not to use them._  
 _He’s heard about what’s on the other side of the door of clubs like LaRue— the Truths and the Rumors— but he wants and he’s never been one good at not getting what he wants._  


_And so standing outside of LaRue, freshly eighteen and not a care in the world, he fixes to brave himself enough to actually enter the club. Easier said than done but done nevertheless._  


_And LaRue is everything (yet nothing) that Zayn had imagined it would be, yet nothing could prepare him for this type of atmosphere. The loud chatter, wafting clouds of smoke ( which may or may not be of substances other than cigarettes), and vibrating, jazzy music make for an overwhelming experience. And despite the many (many) lights lined in strips above the endless bars and tables and booths, Zayn can barely see where he's walking to; just allowing his feet to carry him aimlessly wherever._  


_He finds himself sitting at one end of the long bar, adjacent to a circular booth seating a group of people who look rich enough. They laugh and joke and talk loudly enough that Zayn can almost hear them over the dizzying bass of the horn ensemble._  


_He doesn't plan on ordering anything, and now that he's here, he feels a bit silly and foreign, only intensified by the way the group looks at him and laughs. The silly and foreign feeling doesn't go away even when a person from the booth, a woman, comes right up next to Zayn. He does feel even more silly though, when he realizes that the lady happens to be Virginia Hervieux and how had he not noticed that before?_  


_Funny that, Virginia had been Zayns entire reasoning for even wanting to come to LaRue, hearing about how she could turn a nobody into a somebody and a somebody into a nobody, and Zayn figures that if he's already a nobody, being a somebody is only the next logical step. Except that now, in Zayns own starstruck internal rambling, he had completely missed whatever Virginia was saying._  


_“So? Your name?”  
_

_“My name?- My-- Zayn. My name is Zayn Malik, Ma’am” he stammers out._  


_“Well, Mr. Malik,” she starts, her voice is low and sultry, yet authoritative, “You’re a new face. A young one, too.”_  


_“I’m eighteen. I just moved here...from Kansas.”_  


_“Kansas? How cute. And what exactly is a Kansas boy doing in New York?”_  


_“I was actually hoping to meet you, Ma’am.”_  


_“You can call me Ms. Virginia.”_  


And Zayn did, and Virginia had offered him a place to stay and a job to hold, both precious things in a time like the present. But for now he settles on writing next week’s article at his uneven desk in the back of the office. He writes generic line after generic line, lost in the monotonous tapping sound of the typewriter’s keys until he hears the familiar click clack of a woman’s shoes; his boss’ shoes, and they stop right before his desk.

“I have a job for you, Mr. Malik,” she says in her sultry yet strict voice. He looks up and sees her dressed in a sparkling red dress that comes mid-thigh, red gloves that come up to her elbows and an equally red scarf. The wedding ring that sits on top of the gloves shines disappointedly at Zayn, and he only feels a little guilty. He remembers when he first got this job, when Virginia had first offered him a bed, and, coincidentally, thought he was good _in_ bed. 

She had a different ring on her finger then, and when Zayn had asked about it, she had looked him in the eyes and said, _“Honey, I’m a woman with needs. My husband is a man with money. Things like that don’t ever really work out, do they?”_ And he remembers thinking, _Are you some kind of flapper?_ , and he remembers her saying, _“I’m some kind of woman. Now tell me, darling, are you some kind of man?”_ Then he had answered her question. Three times.

Now, he looks at her with a smirk on his face. “And what might that be, Ms. Virginia?” 

“Certainly not that,” she answers back with a knowing voice. “Jack, Mr. Waldorf, is being thrown a party in his honor. He insists on my attendance, and I’m sure what I have in mind will benefit you greatly.” She pauses, makes sure Zayn is still listening. “At the party tonight there will be someone I would like you to interview, someone very special. Dress appropriately and we will leave together.” And then she turns on her heels and walks away.

 

The house, more of a mansion if Zayn’s ever seen one, is filled with people, pretentious laughter, and sounds of trumpets and saxophones. The people are overly happy, seemingly blissfully ignorant of the world and people around them—currently and always—not at all lethargic like the rest of them, almost distant and disconnected from the rest of them.It reminds him of that first day in LaRue, and suddenly he’s eighteen and overwhelmed all over again. 

“Who exactly owns this house, Ms. Virginia?” Zayn asks, unconvinced that this will be his everyday interview. 

“Who owns the house?” She repeats, her voice edging towards a _what a ridiculous question_ kind of tone. “Why, the wonderful Mr. Styles. Who you’ll be writing your article on? Harry Styles.”

At that name, Zayn freezes, equal parts shocked and horrified.

“Think of this as my early Christmas gift to you,” Virginia says, as if Zayn would ever actually get a Christmas gift.

Because of course, the notorious Harry Styles. The Styles who never shows up to his own parties. The Styles who’s never done a single interview. 

The Styles who has _never actually been seen._

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to make Virginia a guy at first but then I wanted to write a woman channeling her inner Sasha Fierce even though it's the 20s because the fierceness of the flappers (weird ass word) was real.
> 
> And hey, I'm on tumblr at et2zarry!


End file.
